Egyptian billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris raised eyebrows earlier this week after making controversial statements during a telephone interview with TV presenter Lamis El Hadidy, which aired on her program Al Qahira Al Aan (Cairo Now) on the Al Hadath network. The famed billionaire echoed calls to reopen the Egyptian economy and lift the curfew recently imposed by the Egyptian government to contain the spread of coronavirus. During the interview, Sawiris claimed that the mortality rate among covid-19 patients “doesn’t go above 1 percent and 90 percent of those are senior citizens,” but he was swiftly corrected by Hadidy, who pointed out that 6 percent of reported coronavirus carriers in Egypt have died. During the interview, Sawiris defended his position saying that people will lose their jobs and defended the private sector for laying off employees or docking their salaries, saying they would go out of business if they didn’t. The billionaire’s most controversial comments came later on in the segment when he suggested workers be quarantined in factories. “There is another proposal that factory workers spend the night and live there and not go home to their families—they would be…
Egyptian Billionaire Naguib Sawiris Draws Criticism Over Calls to Reopen the Economy Despite COVID-19 Pandemic
April 1, 2020
